Europe breathed a deep collective sigh of relief on Monday, as the crisis caused by the announcement of a new 28-article proposal for resolving the conflict appeared – briefly – to have been stabilised. A senior US official spoke of "substantial progress" after diplomatic discussions in Geneva. On Monday night, the Kremlin made its countermove: another massive barrage of rocket attacks on Kyiv.
The Cycle of Diplomacy and Destruction
The succession of conflicting incidents captured the bleak nature of the outgoing year. By day, political struggles are conducted: hopeful statements are delivered from various governments. Significant resources is devoted on containing certain initiatives. By night, Russian leadership brutally reminds the world that, for them, war remains the main instrument for achieving "settlement".
Nocturnal Warfare
As Russia's attack developed into the early hours of Tuesday, the current condition of Ukraine's exposure was exposed. Ukraine is equipped to monitor projectile deployments from across the border, a capacity enabled by current data. From witness perspectives, defense planes that had been dispatched to counter approaching aerial threats flew past – sophisticated military planes delivered to Ukraine by European allies.
Soon thereafter, Kyiv's anti-aircraft weapons thundered: multiple launches targeted at a hostile projectile. This was a modern interception technology at work, probably supplied through allied countries. Every launch creates sudden vibrations, causing tremors. The brief panic quickly transforms into sober acceptance: possibly the approaching threat won't cause damage this time, protecting urban areas from catastrophe and additional electricity failures.
Persistent Threats
Soon after, a automatic firearm fired at a aerial vehicle somewhere nearby, part of a rapid response unit – almost certainly allied-provided weaponry. Sadly, the bullets missed the opposing UAV – it pressed on overhead toward its target.
Intermittently, this carried on until dawn. Kyiv greeted the daybreak reports: multiple fatalities, damage and utility failures in multiple buildings as a result of the nocturnal offensive. As customarily, everyone still continued their routines – experiencing conflict. But those entire period illustrated Ukraine's critical military reliance on international aid – a dependence that neighboring countries are clearly incapable to replace in the immediate future.
Failed Diplomacy
The 28-point plan from US administration generated strong feelings, controversy and serious worry – and momentarily shifted focus from Ukraine's most significant graft case in years. Yet, we have seen this script before, after previous diplomatic encounters and international summits.
Every new approach from American administration adheres to the consistent cycle: a negotiation push against Ukraine, which Kyiv, with partner nations, succeeds in resisting. They contain the crisis but never actually achieve victory. This trend will, certainly, persist.
Strategic Calculations
It is convenient to criticize particular leaders of persistently promoting Russian terms. But that does not seem to be the entire situation. Washington operates on a premise well known to international relations experts: you cannot secure via talks what you have been unable to protect through force. The US administration believes that it is unrealistic to pressure the Kremlin to surrender the land that it presently holds in Ukraine's southern or eastern regions.
The issue is that while recognising this factual reality, US leadership does nothing to prevent Kremlin actions, through words or deeds, from assuming that the situation will not shift further in its advantage in the near future.
Conflicting Perspectives
Therefore, Russian leadership is convinced that duration works to their advantage – that Ukraine and its supporters are coming close to fatigue. Their reason to agree to terms that does not give them the greatest potential benefit is almost completely absent. There may be multiple initiatives to stop fighting, but they will carry on as long as Russia's leader remains supremely confident in the outcome.
On the contrary, Ukraine's government believes that Ukraine can still endure, slowly losing lives and land but avoiding a complete military breakdown until conditions improve in its advantage.
Present Conditions
Objectively, there are no genuine requirements for a armistice. Now, subjective factors are coming into play: political desires to broker a ceasefire and secure international recognition, and Ukrainian leadership's dual difficulties – on one hand, not to distance important partners, and on the other, to rally Ukrainians around the national cause against any plan Kyiv finds unacceptable, so that their priority does not switch to homefront challenges. And although their objective will now be considerably more difficult after current events, it remains quite doubtful that this will modify their basic position.
These two forces are guiding negotiations.
Conclusion and Outlook
It took a just a single week to terminate the proposed articles of the most recent proposal. Forceful and unpredictable management of the matter by US administration, pushback by Ukraine and the rest of Europe, along with pacifying measures of representatives, and finally, latest revelations, all achieved their purpose.
While new proposals based on old ideas are approaching, Kyiv, London and other Western governments should draw one fundamental conclusion: Ukraine and Europe will only be able to resist negotiation assaults from Washington that are based on Russian demands and demonstrate certain reluctance to change the course of events, if they maintain solidarity and enhance their military capacity at a considerably quicker tempo. If they do, neither external pressure nor military threats will be able to overcome them. In the meantime, Ukraine's ability to defend against evening bombardments will, for the coming months, mainly require ongoing international assistance.
